Did Trump Organize the Fyre Festival — A Disastrous Failed Luxury “Music Event” — or did the Event’s “Organizer” Billy Mcfarland Become President of the USA?

Take the Fyre Festival — the disastrous failed luxury “Music Event” story about disappointed rich brat music festival goers — and the “presidency” of rich brat Donald Trump… andmerge them.

Here’s an oddly entertaining — and scary — thought experiment

The Trump/Fyre Festival merger (below) is a parable of American decline, hubris and fake “values” that wove money, greed, and a lack of tactile connection to reality, into one bizarre apocalyptic tapestry.

I’ve taken excerpts from a story in Huffington Post and merged them with bits of a New York Times editorial into one single story of dysfunction.

I assume you’ve heard of Trump, but In case you never heard of this failed “music festival” here’s how the Washington Postbroke the darkly amusing story:

The organizers of the Fyre Festival promised “two transformative weekends” on a “remote and private” island in the Bahamas that was “once owned by Pablo Escobar.” …

Festival-goers paid anywhere from $450 for a no-frills day pass to up to $250,000 for the full VIP experience. One widely-advertised festival package cost $12,000. There were even packages that included a private yacht….

…Anyone who could afford the ticket would arrive in paradise on a private jet with their friends, for a taste of the lifestyle that only seems to exist on the Instagram feeds of models.

None of that happened.

The first wave of paying guests arrived on Thursday, only to find themselves staring at a chaotic festival site that appeared to be weeks away from being able to host anyone….

Blink-182, one of the bands headlining the festival, had canceled at the last minute. The tents that were set up for guests to sleep in looked like “FEMA tents,” one person said. Not exactly the luxury accommodations they’d paid for. Meanwhile some tents were still in their boxes

Before he co-founded the Fyre Festival… 25-year-old Billy McFarland dropped out of college and started a combination credit card company and private club for millennials….. McFarland did all the things that founders of startups with meaningless names do: He raised a few million dollars, produced an unnecessary product and got his photo taken lying on top of six young women while holding his credit card… All that’s needed to complete the Trump pattern is the insultingly obvious effort by the president’s kin to cash in. A health care summit meeting at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, maybe.

The card didn’t do what it said it would do, according to online reviews. “Imagine if using OpenTable cost $250/year … that’s Magnises,” a review of the card by Michael Worley reads. And that dim view appears to be a best-case scenario. …Trump was accustomed to negotiations based on the simple reality that everyone involved shared the same objective: profit. He has struggled to bargain with legislators, who want to satisfy many constituencies and have conflicting notions of the national interest.

“I thought it would be easier,” Mr. Trump admitted about his job to Reuters this week.

…Trump has continually fomented fear and bullied vulnerable groups, particularly unauthorized immigrants. It’s unclear exactly why Magnises didn’t have the tickets it said it had or couldn’t process refunds quickly. And those problems, along with a great deal of hubris, appear to be part of what went wrong with the Fyre Festival on the island of Exuma in the Bahamas. And what of his central campaign pledge, to make America great again, presumably by creating vast numbers of jobs for those who helped elect him? … The giant infrastructure program, which would indeed yield jobs, is nowhere to be seen. In its place are proposed tax cuts to benefit mainly the wealthy and photo-op executive orders to deregulate energy businesses that, even if sustained by the courts — a long shot — will merely enrich the likes of the Koch brothers…. The Fyre spokesman called again later, though, after offering an exclusive statement to another publication, then hung up after HuffPost questioned him about the missed interview and changed arrangement. Ja Rule responded with a statement apologizing to those who were stuck on the island…and denying any blame for the fiasco…

Lesson learned?

We know Trump-voters are deluded angry people. On the other hand the brilliant “disruptive” millennial geniuses who signed up for — not to mention “led” — the Fyre Festival, didn’t turn out to be so smart either.

Conclusion:

The entertainment tech-addled “connected” “culture” eats its own– at both ends of the social/political spectrum.